This one is late

Continuing the revisiting of decks to see where they're going, I have this post, which I meant to get up sooner, but then PAX happened and now we're here.

The setting: NWIPA, where my girlfriend and I have come out to have a beer.

Though my girlfriend meant to bring a bears deck to hammer me with, she forgot it and thus was stuck with my creations. For a player like her who is still pretty inexperienced in the game I figured Hard Time Killing Floor Blues would suit pretty well. I took up the Scavenger deck to see how it would withstand a blue rush.

It didn't stand so much as feebly rise and then collapse. Though I was able to get out a bunch of flying creatures what you see in the photo is her hammering at me for 7: 5 in the air and 2 via the shadow. The shadow creature was Curiosity'd up and she had been drawing cards every turn to keep the pressure on.

So even though she only drew 3 lands during the entire game, it was enough to pull out the match win, 2-0.

However, what I picked up in those games is that while Ghastly Demise is good, I have a manabase that can support Skinrender. I was concerned that coming up with double black would be difficult but I don't think it's as big a worry as I made it up in my head and Skinrender fits a bit better with the overall theme.

The second thing is: Shadow > Flying and I should probably have more Drifters in the deck than Spindrift Drakes. Unblockability is huge and nearly everything else I have already flies, so having a way to get around an opponent's fliers is critical, because my creatures won't be bigger than my opponent's.

Recaps and Updates

So the truth is, I can't leave anything alone that is still a problem. Hence, behind the scenes work on Oak God, which has lead to me removing four lands, adding in Elvish Archdruid, Craterhoof Behemoth, and two Llanowar Elves, swapping Genesis Wave for Chord of Calling and going from there.

It feels very, very weird to go to 18 lands and I'll be the first person to admit that if someone plays red sweeper cards, I'm totally fucked. But the crazy thing? It's working. It's not brilliant but I'm having more fun: missing on one Genesis Wave is more exciting than casting Chord of Calling 60 times for the win.


18 Forest

4 Citanul Druid
1 Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
2 Seton, Krosan Protector
3 Werebear
4 Fyndhorn Elves
3 Gilt-Leaf Archdruid
2 Elvish Harbinger
2 Yavimaya Elder
3 Regal Force
3 Mul Daya Channelers
3 Adaptive Automaton
2 Llanowar Elves
1 Elvish Archdruid
1 Craterhoof Behemoth

3 Dense Foliage

2 Vitalize

3 Genesis Wave

With Here Come The Butchers, I had a revelation: no matter how big the Death Cloud, odds are I'm going to keep 3 lands. Why not make them lands that can do something for me? Enter Spawning Pool which, coupled with a bigger focus on discard, will hopefully give the deck some of the reach it was looking for. 

I realize Raven's Crime isn't the most efficient discard but it does play nice with Tilling Treefolk so it's getting the nod for now. (Plus, I don't really own any better options at this point.) This deck may be better suited for multiplayer overall and I don't mind that. You need decks for every situation because no one thing fits all.

7 Swamp

1 Thran Quarry

2 Spawning Pool

9 Forest

4 Woodland Cemetery

3 Penumbra Bobcat

3 Penumbra Spider

4 Bone Shredder

3 Tilling Treefolk

3 Vorapede

2 Puppeteer Clique

2 Viridian Emissary

4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Death Cloud

3 Unmask

4 Raven's Crime

2 Golgari Signet

In the case of Scavenger, I had a sudden flash: why not just forget creature removal and put in 4 Bonehoards? They fit the theme, are difficult to remove and have the bonus of taking small Wingcrafters and making them formidable.

That...only sort of worked. I kept having games where the Bonehoard would be milled away, which is going to happen, or would be drawn but not really helpful. So I trimmed some space for Ghastly Demise, which also works in the theme, is cheap and helpful for a three color deck. I had to cut the Fungal Shamblers though, which is a bummer. Hopefully they'll find another deck.

3 Swamp
4 Salt Marsh

5 Island

10 Forest

4 Urborg Elf

4 Phyrexian Lens

2 Vorosh, the Hunter

4 Lhurgoyf

4 Splinterfright

4 Wingcrafter

3 Apprentice Necromancer

4 Hapless Researcher

3 Bonehoard

3 Recoil
3 Ghastly Demise

Finally, with Hard Time Killing Floor Blues, I went to the binder to discover that I only had 2 Daze. This isn't enough for me to run countermagic and so I went with Rider's suggestion of Unstable Mutation. The deck has sped up and initial tests are good but they aren't overwhelming, yet. The Drifter though? That's been totally worth adding and I should probably consider a 3rd one, taking out a Spindrift Drake to make room.

2 Svyelunite Temple

19 Island

2 Saprazzan Skerry

4 Echoing Truth

2 Flying Men

3 Vexing Sphinx

3 Wormfang Drake

3 Thought Eater

2 Gossamer Phantasm

3 Spindrift Drake

3 Cloud of Faeries

2 Hunted Phantasm

2 Drifter il-Dal

3 Unstable Mutation

3 Curiosity

4 Standstill

Can't Find No Heaven

Or, the aggro deck that wasn't aggro enough.

Aggro decks want to get their damage going on turn two: what I learned from these tests were that: 1) I don't have enough aggressive one drops (three) and 2) I need something other than the standard form of evasion this deck has.

Hard Time... is at it's best as when I tested against Fuz: turn 1 creature, turn 2 Curiosity on that creature, swing, draw a card. I did this in 2 of 3 games against him and it was huge.

On the other hand, despite getting a good start against stonethorn's Rise deck, I found myself stymied when his flyers were bigger than mine and I couldn't get anything through.

Finally, against Rider's W/R human's deck, there were only two games. In game one, I lost, because I didn't use Echoing Truth on the rush of human tokens (five) coming at me, but instead went for two Doomed Travelers. My logic was: three of the five tokens will die, the Travelers will have to be re-cast and will give me a bit more time.

But no: Avoiding 5 of 7 points of damage is a much bigger deal and that cost me the game.

I pulled out game two, having a strong rush of cards-Spindrift Drake is a big deal-flowing into a Wormfang Drake, which freed up more mana later and attacking for 7 then 7 again to put it away.

So what needs to happen?

First: different kinds of unblockable dudes. Unfortunately, the current champion of Blue aggro guys would be Delver of Secrets, a card that has no place in this deck. After that, there is only one option: Drifter il-Dal. This should probably replace a situational card like Briarberry Cohort: a guaranteed attack for 2 is going to be a stronger play than an attack for 1, despite how much I like what the Cohort does in this deck.

Unfortunately, what this means is that I eat up a lot of mana trying to ensure two damage every turn. Which means a spell like Dissipate doesn't make any sense at all. I'll be looking for the obvious replacement, Force of Will but almost any 'free' counterspell is worth consideration here, notably Daze as it's cheap and matters in the early game when some other deck might try to outrace me. In the late game, if I haven't won, it's over anyway.